The Central Valley, the heart of California, is the state’s top agricultural producing region, often called “the nation’s salad bowl” for the great array of fruits and vegetables grown in its rich soil.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, wasn’t thinking about California’s Central Valley when he wrote:

However, if the water resources department gets its way, the Central Valley may as well get used to this poem.

I talked with Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford, a fourth-generation farmer from the Central Valley, about this threat. Vidak represents all of Kings County and portions of Fresno, Kern and Tulare counties.

“A five percent water allocation for our Valley is unconscionable; it will wipe out any hope of a thriving agriculture community and the jobs it brings,” Vidak said.

While Vidak said California has had two dry years, the Central Valley is suffering under the San Joaquin River Restoration Program, a federal program to restore flows to the San Joaquin River from Friant Dam to the confluence of Merced River, in order to restore Chinook salmon in the river. “Billions are being spent on dry salmon runs,” Vidak said. “We’re spending $2 million to $3 million per fish!”

Vidak said the Central Valley is home to the poorest district in the state, and in the entire United States.  “Yet we’re doing this with salmon?” he asked incredulously. “Communities and cities in the Valley continue to be deprived of their fundamental right to water because of extreme environmentalists that promote policies that place the needs of animals and fish above those of families, farmers and agricultural workers.”

Vidak said the San Joaquin River Restoration Program officials are even trucking salmon around dry river areas to spawn.

“We’re now running this water out to the ocean,” Vidak said. “We don’t even had clean drinking water. “It’s politicians who have done this, and environmentalists have gone too far.”

Vidak said Gov. Jerry Brown could declare a state of emergency to help “ratchet down the federal salmon project.”

 State Water Bond

“This hammers home the point that any water bond that does not fully fund surface water storage and conveyance for the Valley is a non-starter.” Vidak said the state water bond was pushed aside to make way for the bullet train.

The Water Bond Measure was originally expected to be on the 2010 ballot. Despite being certified for the ballot, it was removed and placed on the 2012 ballot. But the Legislature instead passed a bill July 2012, to take the water bond measure off the 2012 ballot and put it on the 2014 ballot.

Even if it passes, Vidak said the state still wouldn’t have any new water storage for five to ten years.

“What we’ve got is a political legacy of pumping the valley dry,” Vidak added. He said the ground is sinking where the High-Speed Rail train is supposed to run because officials are pumping out ground water.

The affected areas in Vidak’s Senate District 16 are:

• Tulare Lake Water Storage District
• Kern County Water Agency
• Empire Westside Irrigation District
• Kings County
• Dudley Ridge Water District

These five areas requested 1.1 million acre-feet of water, but with the 5 percent allocation, they will only receive 56,544 acre-feet.

Yet the video footage in question, of Assembly floor sessions, is available to the public on the California Channel online, and on Comcast cable television. It is in fact, paid for by the public.

Donnelly’s campaign has a video posted on YouTube.
”Patriot, Not Politician,” features many clips of the Assemblyman Donnelly speaking on the Assembly floor, which Waldie says is not allowed “for any political or commercial purpose.”

However, Assembly Speaker John A. Perez has official Legislative video on his Facebook page (captured in a screen shot to the right). And Perez himself is running for higher office, announcing in October he was running for state controller.

So is the Democratic-controlled Assembly playing games with Donnelly, a Republican?

“State law prohibits the use of any ‘television signal generated by the Assembly … for any political or commercial purpose,’ and Waldie said he plans to issue the Donnelly campaign a cease and desist letter Friday,” the Sacramento Bee reported.

“The floor shots are definitely ours,” Waldie said.

Jennifer Kerns, Donnelly’s campaign spokeswoman, said their interpretation is that Assembly proceedings footage is part of the public record, and can be used by the campaign.

“‘It’s our understanding that once that video is aired publicly that it’s part of the public domain,’ she said, adding that she was looking at the state Capitol at the moment and that ‘the taxpayers pay for that building,'” the Sacramento Bee reported.

Perez’s video footage was posted on his Facebook page July 1, the day Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 1500. The bill will impose a $1 billion tax increase on businesses and employers who operate inside California, but are headquartered out-of-state, to pay for a “Middle-Class Scholarship” for California’s public college students.

If the video rule doesn’t apply to the Assembly Speaker, is Waldie’s demand that Assemblyman Donnelly pull the campaign video footage legitimate?

What is right?

I received the following email message from Steven Maviglio, Communications Director for Speaker Perez:

“The Speaker’s website is a state website, not a campaign website. And, of course, that’s permissible.

I’m not sure why the legislature thinks that a building owned by the public, used for crafting public policy and setting up the state budget, is somehow immune from transparency and public view, after the video is aired publicly?

This is an accountability issue. As long as no one is misshaping the message, then where’s the harm?

Local governing bodies and Congress use footage from committees and the floor all the time in campaign commercials. Why should the California State legislature be any different?

Many members of the Legislature have used their Cal Channel speeches on their websites. Here are just a few:

First Amendment

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution ensures that “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein,” as Justice Robert Jackson wrote in the 1943 case West Virginia v. Barnette.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

One of the groups accused of the “campaign money laundering,” the Center to Protect Patient Rights, plans to announce today it has resolved its portion of its legal dispute with the FPPC.

The issue was $11 million in Super PAC money contributed to fight the Gov. Jerry Brown's ballot initiative to increase sales and income taxes through Proposition 30, and the ballot initiative which would have weakened the political power of labor unions, Proposition 32.

There was relatively little media interest in the $66 million raised by organized labor to fight passage of Prop. 32, including $20 million from the California Teachers Association.

The $11 million donation made headlines and generated a controversy because of its source — an unknown Phoenix group called Americans for Responsible Leadership.

The Center to Protect Patient Rights, was the other Arizona organization involved in the donation.

FPPC Chairwoman Ann Ravel ordered agency attorneys to demand that Americans for Responsible Leadership disclose the contribution’s original donors,  after California Common Cause filed a complaint. When the groups would not, Ravel and Attorney General Kamala Harris opened a formal inquiry into the group’s donation to the Small Business Action Committee.

Settlement

“The California Fair Political Practices Commission has announced that the legal dispute over the filing of CPPR’s reports last year has been completely and finally settled,” said Sean Noble, President of the CPPR in an email.

“CPPR is pleased the Commission determined that the organization never intended to violate campaign reporting rules nor did it intend to conceal information from the public. CPPR ‘inadvertently’ erred largely because it had never previously made any contributions in the State of California,” said Noble.

“CPPR will remain vigilant in its work to encourage and support likeminded groups and individuals, and educate the public on issues related to limited government, free enterprise, and the protection of patient rights.”

The settlement seem large given the group was absolved of intentional wrongdoing.

Center to Protect Patient Rights

The first part of this civil dispute was settled last November when disclosure letters were filed prior to the 2012 election.

CPPR’s filing with the FPPC in 2012 was the organization’s first and only in the State of California, according to a source close to the case. Yet, the filing attracted more than its fair share of scrutiny from those on the left who disagree with CPPR’s mission of working to keep the United States financially and fiscally sound.

Many charged the controversial $11 million contribution came from the despised Koch brothers, who give to conservative causes. The recipient of the  donation was Sacramento-based Small Business Action Committee PAC and its No on Proposition 30/Yes on Proposition 32 efforts.

The FPPC made clear in the settlement that CPPR made an “inadvertent” error, but acted in “good faith” and never intended to violate campaign reporting rules.

However, another source who asked for anonymity because the details of the settlement have not been formally announced by the FPPC anticipates closure of this matter will not be enough to satisfy some on the left, and said these individuals and organizations will take every opportunity to try to silence those they disagree with.

The total FPPC settlement is $1 million, to be broken out among the accused groups.

The source said the unprecedented size of the financial settlement over an issue that amounts to an inadvertent filing error is a glaring example of the Commission’s power over non-profit organizations that pursue a constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech in elections.

Government overreach – think IRS scandal

According to my source, the FPPC overreach is similar to the IRS’s disturbing overreach with “conservative” non-profit organizations and Tea Party groups. “Americans should be rightly concerned about any misuse of power by government political ‘watchdogs’ against legitimate non-profit organizations,” the source said.

But it also was curious that veteran GOP operative, political analyst and former legislative aid Tony Quinn penned a scathing story of conservative stalwart Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove. McClintock, a 22-year California state legislator, was elected to Congress in 2008.

“It is time for California Republicans to confront the real enemies who are dragging them from defeat to defeat, and this means dealing with the Tea Party extremists in their own ranks,” Quinn wrote in Fox and Hounds.

“No Tea Party congressman is more deserving of defeat than Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove) whose 30-year career has been devoted to destroying the sunny, positive conservatism that Ronald Reagan gave us and replacing it with a sour, negative, anti-everything fringy right-wing populism.”

Quinn obviously doesn't like McClintock. He doesn't like many conservatives or Republicans, and has a particular dislike for the Tea Party.

Tony v. Tom

Ever since his days as policy director for the Assembly Republican Caucus in the mid-1980's, Quinn has been taking aim at McClintock, who was the Assembly Republican whip at the time.

Quinn also attacks McClintock personally. “McClintock does vote 'yes' on one thing, his own pension,” Quinn said. “The Sacramento Bee recently reported that McClintock is collecting his legislative pension while a member of Congress.”

“Unlike ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Boxer, Tom isn’t independently wealthy,” my colleague John Seiler pointed out in a recent story. “So he has to take a government paycheck to support his family. His paycheck is one of the few cases of my tax money being well spent.”

If Quinn believes that McClintock can be attacked for feeding at the public trough because he receives a legislative pension, he should look at opensecrets.org. McClintock ranks 419th out of the 435 House members in personal wealth.

Quinn's rich history of skewering McClintock

Quinn has never been shy about his vehement dislike of McClintock. “Tom McClintock may be the single biggest loser in California political history,” Quinn wrote on Fox and Hounds in 2010. McClintock narrowly lost two races for state controller and one for lieutenant governor. He also finished third in the recall election in 2003, behind winner Arnold Schwarzenegger and then Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.

In a recent story on Fox and Hounds, Quinn even accused McClintock of wanting to weaken the country's national security.

Quinn wrote a story on Fox and Hounds in July complaining about newly elected Republican Sen. Andy Vidak's win in the Central Valley, in “Democrats Foolishly Blow an Easy Win.”

I remember when McClintock ran for Congress in 2008, Quinn was the first to happily predict a McClintock defeat in the primary. But Quinn was wrong. McClintock won by 14 points, despite being significantly outspent.

“McClintock helped pilot the Ted Cruz kamikaze dive bomber this week by supporting both the government shutdown and default on the debt,” Quinn said.  “A Sacramento area cancer survivor who could not get treatment due to the shutdown delivered 140,000 signatures to McClintock’s office urging he vote for the compromise to reopen the government.  What did McClintock do, he voted 'no' as he always does,” Quinn quipped.

That's correct — McClintock voted “no.” But his vote reflects all the many problems Obamacare is bringing. Here are the DrudgeReport's headlines for today:

OBAMASCARE: WOMAN FALLS ILL IN ROSE GARDEN!
CONSUMER REPORTS: 'Stay away'...
FOURNIER: Worse Than We Know...
Busy signal for 'hotline' number provided...
Man Spends 4.5 Hours on Phone But Still Can't Sign Up...
Hannity Gets Through, Operator Says No One Likes It...
WH busted pushing false account of success...
NBA Stars Promote in CA...
CRUZ: 'Nigerian Email Scammers' Running Website...
Zero Enrollments in New York?
Democrats warm to 'delay'...

If McClintock ever manages to surprise supporters on a vote, there likely is a constitutional reason for it. McClintock’s strong civil liberties streak usually attracts a considerable number of Democrats and Independents during election time.

During the government shutdown, on the House floor, McClintock helped push through a measure that would have re-opened the parks, and was joined by 23 House Democrats. I've also written about McClintock's battle to prevent tourist amenities from being removed by environmentalists at Yosemite National Park, which would result in a permanent reduction in tourism in the entire region.

Comparing California Reps

Compared to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, McClintock receives most of his political contributions from individuals, according to the Open Secrets Center for Responsive Politics. Open Secrets reports in the most recent campaign contribution report, 92 percent of McClintock's contributions are from individual contributors. Political Action Committees contribute 7 percent, and large contributors make up 45 percent of his contributors.

Pelosi receives only 39 percent of her contributions from individuals, 39 percent from political action committees, and 26 percent from large contributors. And her large contributors contribute significantly more than McClintock's.

In the 2013-14 campaign cycle, Pelosi has already received $174,097 from large contributors, in mostly $10,400 chunks. McClintock has received $126,569, in the form of $4,500 and $5,200 contributions.

By Katy Grimes

A local Sacramento politician recently issued a threat to punish businesses who disagree with him. His threat barely received a blip in the news.

In a recent State of the City speech, West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon said he would “make sure that not one penny of the hundreds of millions of dollars” his city spends on construction projects would go to companies that would undercut the Blueprint and thereby hurt West Sacramento.

Is this how business is done now? The seriousness of this type of behavior by an elected official should send a chill throughout the business community.

This is a shame because Cabaldon has done an admirable job of supporting policies to allow the growth of the once industrial West Sacramento into a thriving, viable community.

Government and business

Last week the Sacramento Bee ran an editorial supportive of the Sacramento Area Council of Government’s governing board  vote on a resolution to reaffirm the council’s support for the region’s “Blueprint” growth strategy. The “Blueprint growth strategy” is another sustainable communities plan, spawned from Senate Bill 375, and AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

SACOG board members, made up entirely of local elected officials from the region’s six counties and 22 cities, are being asked to back the agency’s staff on the sustainable growth plan. But a local building association charged the SACOG staff with lobbying on behalf of SACOG.

“The vote is necessary because SACOG is under attack,” the Bee editorial board wrote. “As the recession draws to a close, the region needs to recommit to sound planning principles.”

The Editorial Board of the Sacramento Bee claimed the recession is coming to an end. But Sacramento and California still top the nation’s unemployment numbers.

“If it doesn’t, it could head back to the era of leapfrog development, worsening air pollution and potential loss of federal transportation funding,” the editorial said. “Influential developers and their elected allies complain that SACOG staffers have gone beyond providing technical assistance to ‘lobbying against projects.'”

The Bee accused Region Builders, a Sacramento trade coalition comprised of companies in the Sacramento building industry, as well as 13 local trade and professional associations, of  “going after West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon, a strong SACOG supporter.”

The Bee has rarely attacked other area developers, particularly the local cabal supportive of Democratic politics, politicians, and causes.

One Bee reader left an apropos comment:

“The Bee mentions the lawyer, a Republican, is threatening to sue that little weasel Cabaldon but fails to mention the biggest developers in the valley, all Greeks, that support almost exclusively Democrats.  Angelo Tsakapolis and the Angelides family have paved over more farm land in this valley and also hold lavish fund raining parties for the likes of Hillary Clinton. Spare me the Republican hit, Bee.”

But the video above makes clear that in his recent State of the City speech, the threat that came from West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon,  was unequivocally directed at Region Builders.

Cabaldon, a Democrat, said he would “make sure that not one penny of the hundreds of millions of dollars” his city spends on construction projects would go to companies that would undercut the Blueprint and thereby hurt West Sacramento.

The Bee claimed Region Builders has attacked Cabaldon, who is a strong SACOG supporter. But in his recent State of the City speech, Cabaldon said he would “make sure that not one penny of the hundreds of millions of dollars” his city spends on construction projects would go to companies that would undercut the Blueprint and thereby hurt West Sacramento.

The Bee editorial said “Cabaldon may have crossed a line with that comment,” but accused Region Builders of going even more overboard by hiring a lawyer. “The group has hired a lawyer – Harmeet K. Dhillon, vice chair of the California Republican Party – to threaten a lawsuit against Cabaldon, according to a letter received Friday by Cabaldon and West Sacramento’s city attorney,” the editorial said. “It’s an obvious attempt to muzzle Cabaldon after previously trying to muzzle SACOG Executive Director Mike McKeever.”

Twitter tells the story

While the Twitter fight played out, the Mayor  said he promised to “forgive” members if they repudiated Region Builders. Cabaldon suggested he would push for prosecution of members who did not.

And more recently the Mayor escalated the conflict when I heard he suggested that members of Region Builders were responsible “if his mangled corpse was found in a ditch.” And  the Mayor claimed Region Builders was pushing a recall against him.

By Katy Grimes

Immediately after the horrific and tragic school shooting in Connecticut Friday, opportunistic politicians all across the country jumped on the anti-gun bandwagon.

My CalWatchdog colleague John Seiler, thankfully also jumped on the politicians yesterday. “…it didn’t take long for gun-control advocates to take a bead on our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms,” Seiler said. “It’s also shameful that politicians use such tragedies to advance their tyrannical agendas.”

Lt. Gov. jumps on bandwagon

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom wasted no time putting forth his next political campaign agenda. “For those calling for the postponement of any discussion of gun and mental health policy in America, you are wrong,” Newsom said, reported the Sacramento Bee, “Today is a clarion call to all leaders, regardless of political party.”

Newsom, one of the biggest opportunists in California politics, has clearly seen this tragedy as an opportunity to push forth another of his nutty ideas.

In 2007, when he was Mayor of San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, “Mayor Gavin Newsom quietly introduced a package of gun control measures on Tuesday that would make it illegal to possess guns on city-owned property and require residents to store handguns in locked containers.”

“We should continue our efforts to restrict the use of legal guns and we will continue our efforts to stem the tide of illegal guns,” Newsom said.

Guns don’t kill people

Guns don’t kill people. Crazy people kill people. We should stem the tide of crazy people, not guns. This big social experiment to let crazy people live among us has failed. Crazy people are like a time bomb or a loaded gun, walking down the street; we never know when they are going to go off.

SUV’s don’t run over people in a crosswalk. The idiot driver behind the wheel is responsible. We are a society run by liberals who want everyone to live together, freely – except those of us who are responsible, law-abiding citizens. The controlling laws are directed at us.

Gun control and anti-gun laws only serve to weaken citizens, while gangs and crazy people collect illegal arms. But a liberal, tyrannical government wants its citizenry to live in fear. What better way than preventing citizens from protecting themselves?

“The strongest reason for the people to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to
protect themselves against tyranny in government,” Thomas Jefferson’s famous quote means more today than ever.

Criminals fear armed citizens more than they fear police. Because criminals go after the lowest point of resistance, citizens bearing arms are unpredictable.

Data from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation show that America has been on a firearms buying spree since the end of 2005, PJ media reported. In 2009, the FBI released preliminary 2009 crime data indicating that violent crime has been dropping at an accelerating rate since the end of 2006.

In 1982, Kennesaw, GA passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one weapon in the house. The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89 percent in Kennesaw, compared to the modest 10.4 percent drop in Georgia as a whole. Ten years later, in 1991, it was reported that the residential burglary rate in Kennesaw was still 72 percent lower than it had been in 1981, before the law was passed.

In Vermont, citizens can carry a firearm without getting permission, without paying a fee, and without going through any kind of government-imposed waiting period. For ten years in a row, Vermont remained one of the top-five, safest states in the union, and three times received the “Safest State Award,” which was ended in 2007.

Fifteen years following the passage of Florida’s concealed carry law in 1987, over 800,000 permits to carry firearms were issued to people in the state. FBI reports show that the homicide rate in Florida, which in 1987 was much higher than the national average, fell 52 percent during that 15-year period — thus putting the Florida rate below the national average.

The Center for Disease Control has admitted that there is no evidence that gun control reduces crime. The CDC has long been criticized for propagating questionable studies which gun control organizations have used in defense of their cause. But after analyzing 51 studies in 2003, the CDC concluded that the “evidence was insufficient to determine the effectiveness of any of these [firearms] laws.”

Some other gun statistics:

* Guns are used 2.5 million times annually or 6,860 times a day. This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than they are to take lives.

* Less than 8 percent of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.

* 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse

* Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year.

* Only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The ‘error rate’ for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high.

God help any thug who breaks into my house… and it’s not just my German Shepherd and marshmallow gun to worry about.

Katy Grimes: A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a story about a couple in a long-term mixed marriage — he’s a Republican, she’s a Democrat. The story chronicled how difficult their life can be every four years.

I would think that every day would be tough, not just every four years.

But one Presidential election, the husband had to travel overseas, so he asked his wife to mail his absentee ballot for him. Instead, she threw it out.

“Bonnie Pollak, a Democrat, weighed her options. Should she be loyal to her spouse, respect his legal right and mail the ballot? Or remain faithful to her deeply held beliefs and suppress his vote?

“It was a real dilemma,” says Ms. Pollak, 58 years old, a student in a doctoral program in social welfare who lives in Manhattan. ‘I decided to do the right thing.'”

Had I done than, I’d be single today.

We are family

We have this problem within my own family–my dad is a Republican, my stepmother is a Democrat. My sisters are also Democrats. My brother is Republican.

However, I am the only  representative of the private sector in my family–everyone else works for the government.

Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinner at the parents’ can be challenging–especially because I am a political journalist, and frequently get asked questions about the state of the state. They just don’t like my answers.

He says it took him at least a year to stop being irritated, and to this day he doesn’t trust his wife of 35 years with his correspondence. “Isn’t it illegal to throw away mail?” he still asks her.

Family differences can be challenging enough, but having a devious, disrespectful spouse is entirely another matter. Mrs. Pollak must surely be a pompous witch, and Mr. Pollak wimpy.

Ms. Pollak, of the tossed ballot incident, says when their three children were young and went away to sleep-away camp, she sent each a long letter detailing why it was important to become a Democrat. (Mr. Pollak fired off a rebuttal when he found out.)

“Only a Democrat would find an ethical dilemma in deciding whether she should keep the promise she made to him to cast his ballot or to deceive him and deny him his right to vote. O tempora! O mores!” one commenter wrote.

If Mrs. Pollak’s “deeply held beliefs” don’t involve honoring her husband’s request or his right to vote, she needs her head examined. Apparently Democracy is not one of her deeply held beliefs.

Fundamentally different world views would make for a nasty marriage – especially with her “deeply held beliefs.” But Mrs. Pollak’s decision to suppress Mr. Pollak’s vote is a vile breach of trust.

That’s what this entire election is about.